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Jonathan Last

A nation of singles

For a brief moment last month​—​roughly a 72-hour span beginning at 11:00 p.m. on November 6 and concluding late in the evening of November 9​—​everyone in America was interested in demographics. That’s because, in addition to rewarding the just, punishing the wicked, and certifying that America was (for the moment) not racist, President Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney pointed to two ineluctable demographic truths. The first was expected: that the growth of the Hispanic-American cohort is irresistible and will radically transform our country’s ethnic future. The second caught people by surprise: that the proportion of unmarried Americans was suddenly at an all-time high.

Unfortunately, by the time the window closed on the public’s demographic curiosity no one really understood either of these shifts. Or where they came from. Or whether they were even particularly true. As is often the case, people tended to fixate on a relatively small, contingent part of America’s changing demographic makeup and look past the bigger, more consequential part of the story.

Start with what we know. As of the 2010 census, there were 308.7 million people in America, 50.5 million of whom (16 percent) were classified as being of “Hispanic origin.” Of that 50 million, about half are foreign-born legal immigrants. Another 11 million or so are illegal immigrants. A few other facts, just to give you some texture: 63 percent of American Hispanics trace their origins to Mexico, 9.2 percent to Puerto Rico, and 3.5 percent to Cuba. And more than half of the 50 million live in just three states, California, Texas, and Florida.

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I’m pretty sure that all the married couples I’ve ever known voted Democrat just the same.

In any case, the idea that a barely functioning Republican Party is going to launch a crusade to get single Americans to tie the knot, is more than faintly risible. (Pace Michael Steele btw.) What some Republicans imagine is that illegal immigrants will bolster the presumed socially conservative, married contingent if only we stop offending them. Possibly they still take literally the novelty lapel button some liberals wore 40 or 50 years ago that read, “God is alive and well in Mexico City.”

The second caught people by surprise: that the proportion of unmarried Americans was suddenly at an all-time high.

You know, I think the pendulum may swing back in some ways. I’m 26 and just got married. Many of my peers who came from divorced homes (I did not) hated it, and have come to see the benefit to starting a family rather than just creating a child.

You’re going to be surprised by the family values of the first generation to come from primarily broken homes, in a good way.

Funny thing: When I think of who I (a single person) and my single female friends voted for this time around, it was overwhelmingly for Romney. I mean, like by 3 to 1. OTOH, my married friends were the ones voting for Obama.

The problem with studies like these is that they assume every group is monolithic. I would think that the conservative platform would be an attractive one for many single people, especially women. These are obviously people who are confident, independent and self-sufficient. That hardly goes hand in hand with the Dems’ cradle-to-grave dependency. Perhaps the GOP should start trying to appeal to people — singles, Hispanics, Martians, etc. — on the basis of those broader principles of liberty and freedom. That ought to be universally appealing, at least to people who are not on the dole.

That said, I’ll agree with the author that on a macro scale, the slide toward singledom is not good for the country. Whether government entitlements are responsible for that or are the natural result of it, I’m not sure. I also don’t know how you turn it around without reversing some of the achievements of the last 50 years. I don’t think we’re going back to the days when women only went to college to find a husband. I will say that, even though singleness is on the rise, from my own experience, I feel like it’s still seen as a bit odd by others not to have been married at one time, and certainly odd not to have any children. So all is not lost in that respect, I guess.

@ernesto: No I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s just that in my experience those values never got translated into sensible voting patterns – even among people who could afford to do without government assistance.

Of course! It’s not as if they won’t stay democrats, but we’ll be democrats who care much more about what it means to be a family unit, which will achieve what socons have wanted for decades, but without other conservative policies riding its coattails.

And another thing. I happen to know people who are married and have children and are religious and get a government salary/pension and are active Democrats, and they still rely on their not-so-rich Republican neighbor for handouts.

Social Security has accomplished its mission. To destroy the family. Those who promoted it had that one goal in mind in creating it. Every one who voted for it and all the voters who refused to get rid of it over the years, congratulations on being useful idiot selfish evil scum. They played you like morons, and you even surprised them with your enthusiasm to prove them right.

ROFLMAO! Obamacare, over-taxation, over-regulation, violations of the Constitution, environmental takings of my property, government mandates, restrictions on the practice of my religion, and “redistribution”, to name some off the top of my head. I’m sure others here can elaborate and pile on.

If those were the principles of the GOP, yes it might help tremendously.

GWB on December 2, 2012 at 11:29 AM

Wouldn’t it? Therein lies the problem with this party. They are incapable of identifying the root cause of their problem and applying the correct solution. Perhaps because, at their core, they no more believe in these principles than the Democrats do. They are nanny staters of a different stripe.

This is why I no longer have a party affiliation. I hope that some of this new guard among the GOP will start to re-establish those principles. Otherwise the party is going the way of the Whigs.